Housing Mistakes

We've had so many mistakes in the past. We were going this way that way. Piggeries, Gardens, Fishing Villages... maybe some of the mistakes weren't even mistakes. Chaos. Everyone scared to do anything or at least anything better.

Sir Lancelot Keay (Gerard Gardens et al) thought he was doing people a favour (in retrospect maybe he was) but he didn’t dream of asking anyone.

I’m told to look at the very recent new stuff in Kensington and the like. Any thoughts on living in those?

As you are no doubt aware Peter, and the short film documentary 'Homes for the workers' says possibly more than I ever could, the buildings of the 'Gardens' were a vast social improvement on what they replaced. Certain essentials (we've now come to expect as normal, even demand) were hot and cold running water inside the house, gas, electricity at the flick of a switch, indoor toilets and bath, back verandas with planters and a central children's play area. I don't expect he thought the need to ask anybody as they were following an Eastern European tried and tested method of economical housing for the masses.

Of course they were of their time and things progress though it was as you say on your blog, under investment by subsequent councils that led to their premature demise with some still surviving and doing alright in their various new guises.

High rise, yes another utopian concept but alas with a lot of flaws and a lot of floors.

The Cornish fishing village aka The Radcliffe estate was a right mess. Lasting only a decade, a true disaster and criminal rat run.

Even other 60s and 70s pebble dash estates such as the Grizedale and Easby were not well planned, not if you were an emergency vehicle driver anyway. They replaced old parallel streets and are themselves being replaced within a couple of generations.

"...if Liverpool can get into top gear again there is no limit to the city's potential. The scale and resilience of the buildings and people is amazing – it is a world city, far more so than London and Manchester. It doesn't feel like anywhere else in Lancashire: comparisons always end up overseas – Dublin, or Boston, or Hamburg."
– Ian Nairn, Britain's Changing Towns, 1967

Ian did go on and mentioned to forget any modern developments in Liverpool.

The problem with Liverpool is that it became a gigantic Council House estate. The private sector should have been allowed in to build owner/occupier homes. Private residential was excluded from the city centre, yet Council blocks were erected at the end of Byrom St.

The middle classes moved to the outskirts where they could by their own homes and commute into the city by the electric urban commuter rail network. This left the city a working class enclave.

Rapid-transit Commuter Rail, with its radial lines from the city centre, enabled people from the outer suburbs, and surrounding small towns, of cities to access the jobs in the city centre. In the specific case of Liverpool, this contributed to the decline of the inner-cities, as people moved to greener, and cleaner, places to live.

In the case of commuter-rail, and large through roads, as opposed to a meshed metro, there was severe negative affects as commuter rail contributed to inner-city blight.

The authorities that allowed the construction were unaware at the time. OK, the outer reaches of cities were supposed to be drawn into the city. I doubt they were expecting the city to be drawn out. In Liverpool's case The electrification of commuter-rail lines in the early 1900s drew people away from the inner-cities. The new electric trains were very fast and clean. At the same time large boulevards were built radiating out from the city and a comprehensive tram system was built with trams in the central reservation - John Lennon lived on one of the boulevards. Trams could get people out of the centre pretty fast as well, but not as far, or as fast, as commuter-rail. The clean running, electric, comprehensive tram network closed down in 1957 for some inexplicable reason. The opening of the under-river Mersey road tunnel in the early 1930s, added again to the decline of the inner-city districts as the middle classes moved out, with the poor working class remaining.

The Liverpool inner-cities were a mixture of working and middles classes. Whole areas of near 200 year old Georgian houses were demolished. OK, some working class houses needed bulldozing for sure, but the people who lived in the inner-cities were disenfranchised. The Georgian houses still are being demolished singularly, as absent landowners allow them to rot. Seeing the success in the USA and Hong Kong, the city was denied to implement Land Valuation Taxation.

Commuter-Rail sock life out of the inner-cities, but then came Thatcher/Reagan demolishing industry and outsourcing manufacturing to China to compound the problem.

Rail overall creates economic growth but sometimes shifts wealth from one area to another. Thought out properly, rail does overall create economic growth with no negative effect on any district. Implemented incorrectly rail can have a negative affect on parts of a community. That was the case with Liverpool and also many north American cities:

The outer parts prospered while the inner-cities slumped.

Visitors see the now ugly inner-city districts easily as they circle the city centre.

Deprived of its unique dockland waters Liverpool
becomes a Venice without canals, just another city, no
longer of special interest to anyone, least of all the
tourist. Would we visit a modernised Venice of filled in
canals to view its modern museum describing
how it once was?

I think you'd have to live in a cave to not know that the inner city in Liverpool, like many other 'doughnut' cities has emptied out to the suburbs and the new towns.

Perhaps you have some thoughts on living in some of the new housing that's gone up in the inner wards in the last decade or indeed very recently?

The point is getting them into the inner cities and getting those districts vibrant again. The Echo announced a few days ago HMG is giving money for areas affected by riots. They hope to make Lodge Lane like Lark Lane. If they get an underground station in Lodge Lane and some of the middle class move in I would say that is possible. Wines bars in Lodge Lane? mmmm As now? Nope.

Liverpool is not a doughnut, it is semi circular. It may be doughnut if Birkenhead is taken into account.

Most the speculative flats in the centre are like rabbit hutches inside. Many are poorly fitted out with quality lacking.

But it is step in the right direction. If they expect middle class outsiders to make roots in Liverpool, which the city needs, they had better up the size and quality.

Deprived of its unique dockland waters Liverpool
becomes a Venice without canals, just another city, no
longer of special interest to anyone, least of all the
tourist. Would we visit a modernised Venice of filled in
canals to view its modern museum describing
how it once was?

Deprived of its unique dockland waters Liverpool
becomes a Venice without canals, just another city, no
longer of special interest to anyone, least of all the
tourist. Would we visit a modernised Venice of filled in
canals to view its modern museum describing
how it once was?

The point and topic of the thread is housing and people's experience of it not your personal interpretation of geographic flux/population movement and Liverpool isn't made of batter either but it's still a doughnut city - it's gorra n'ole in the middle.

His argument was that much of council housing had fallen into shocking disrepair not necessarily by virtue of their design but more the politics of the housing acts and the social engineering that created ghettoes of the disadvantaged.

Places like the Gardens where loved then hated, then loved again (when they'd gone) and even high rise towers now sell as des res.

I'd be interested to know after all the failures and lessons learnt, whether the lessons have indeed been learned and the current crop of new housing is liked or loathed.

I did see the great estate programme Peter and enjoyed it very much. I was brought up in tenements, first the Eldon Grove style flats that we on Holly Street (pre St Anne Street police station) and then Thurlow House (part of Gerard Crescent) and then 200 yards to Gerard Gardens because we'd at last been allocated the all important extra bedroom (but by then my older bro had moved out anyway)

I didn't know anything else so thought these were the bees knees. I really enjoyed living in them, the coal fires, the snugness (called compact in todays apartments but really means small) I actually felt a bit sorry for those who I knew that lived in just ordinary streets, even those in the posher suburbs with proper gardens, I mean who needs grass when you've got the square down below which was your footy pitch, your cricket pitch, your tennis court, your hopscotch grid etc etc. Many games were invented and improvised upon including 'spot' or hit the post - both similar but where you took turns to try and hit a certain section of wall with the football or the lamp standard in the middle of the square - you had so many lives then you were out until the last man standing was the winner. 60 seconds was another footy game played by using the blocks stairwell entrance as a goal. Lick the can, a variation of hide n' seek and of course off ground tick and the like.

What did the poor street dwellers do for bommie night when we had our own enclosed square? No, i'd rather not have lived anywhere else in the 70s that in those tennies. It is true that the council after a mid 70s refurb of new roof tiles and Robinson Willey gas fires did rather let the tennies down and in the 80s they were looking tired but needn't have if they were maintained properly.

I did see the great estate programme Peter and enjoyed it very much. I was brought up in tenements, first the Eldon Grove style flats that we on Holly Street (pre St Anne Street police station) and then Thurlow House (part of Gerard Crescent) and then 200 yards to Gerard Gardens because we'd at last been allocated the all important extra bedroom (but by then my older bro had moved out anyway)

I didn't know anything else so thought these were the bees knees. I really enjoyed living in them, the coal fires, the snugness (called compact in todays apartments but really means small) I actually felt a bit sorry for those who I knew that lived in just ordinary streets, even those in the posher suburbs with proper gardens, I mean who needs grass when you've got the square down below which was your footy pitch, your cricket pitch, your tennis court, your hopscotch grid etc etc. Many games were invented and improvised upon including 'spot' or hit the post - both similar but where you took turns to try and hit a certain section of wall with the football or the lamp standard in the middle of the square - you had so many lives then you were out until the last man standing was the winner. 60 seconds was another footy game played by using the blocks stairwell entrance as a goal. Lick the can, a variation of hide n' seek and of course off ground tick and the like.

What did the poor street dwellers do for bommie night when we had our own enclosed square? No, i'd rather not have lived anywhere else in the 70s that in those tennies. It is true that the council after a mid 70s refurb of new roof tiles and Robinson Willey gas fires did rather let the tennies down and in the 80s they were looking tired but needn't have if they were maintained properly.

....
But it is step in the right direction. If they expect middle class outsiders to make roots in Liverpool, which the city needs, they had better up the size and quality.
....

The issue you are not mentioning is that the middle class usually want to have children, and a high rise city centre (most cities, not just Liverpool) is not the best place to raise children.

Creating families was a great part of the move to the suburbs - the dream of a house with a front and back garden. My 90 year old mum still talks about that being the dream of her life after growing up in Italy. She never ever thought that she would own her own home - and probably will never leave it - she's been in the same house now for 61 years now....

The issue you are not mentioning is that the middle class usually want to have children, and a high rise city centre (most cities, not just Liverpool) is not the best place to raise children.

Creating families was a great part of the move to the suburbs - the dream of a house with a front and back garden. My 90 year old mum still talks about that being the dream of her life after growing up in Italy. She never ever thought that she would own her own home - and probably will never leave it - she's been in the same house now for 61 years now....

That is a poor defense of inner-city decay - perpetrated by Thatcher and Reagan. Children are only a preserve of the middle class?

You do not need leafy suburbs to bring up children. You need appropriate facilities and open spaces. Also, many people live alone or in couples and no children. People are living longer. Young professionals, and retired people, prefer to live in vibrant city centres, or near to the centre (inner-cities).

Deprived of its unique dockland waters Liverpool
becomes a Venice without canals, just another city, no
longer of special interest to anyone, least of all the
tourist. Would we visit a modernised Venice of filled in
canals to view its modern museum describing
how it once was?

People who lived in slum housing and there was plenty of that in the Good Old days would think the Gardens were brilliant,but the ones that moved to Norris Green must have thought that they had died and gone to heaven with their back and front gardens.

I know of people who moved to houses with front and back gardens whose new house was full of mod cons but not full of memories. For the older generation moving out of the city centre where they'd never needed a bus never mind a taxi, being shut off from what they knew was a wrench to say the least. For some, the garden was too much to maintain and they still ventured into town to meet up at their once local watering hole. The landings made for fantastic places to while away the hours just watching the world (or square activities) go by, putting the world to rights and because you had to actually pass other people on the way to your front door, it made for getting to know neighbours - not like the unsociable and lack of community spirit scenario so often witnessed these days.

I know of people who moved to houses with front and back gardens whose new house was full of mod cons but not full of memories...

The suburbs were a huge mistake - and not just in Liverpool. Strong fences make for no neighbours. No shops, no middle, no place, poor buildings - make it worse.

"the Boot Estate in Norris Green, a now-soiled 1920s visionary transformation of farmland into a landscape of roundabouts and boulevards almost absent of cars, serving 1500 houses and gardens, and comparable to innovative housing areas of pre-1945 Germany, and more recent Danish, German and Netherlandish models. It needs now to be demolished due to technical obsolescence" Doug Clelland. EMAP 2008

I know of people who moved to houses with front and back gardens whose new house was full of mod cons but not full of memories. For the older generation moving out of the city centre where they'd never needed a bus never mind a taxi, being shut off from what they knew was a wrench to say the least. For some, the garden was too much to maintain and they still ventured into town to meet up at their once local watering hole. The landings made for fantastic places to while away the hours just watching the world (or square activities) go by, putting the world to rights and because you had to actually pass other people on the way to your front door, it made for getting to know neighbours - not like the unsociable and lack of community spirit scenario so often witnessed these days.

You're spot on there Ged.

Most people nowadays, me included, walk out their house straight into their car on the driveway and drive to, say, the supermarket.

Years ago they would have had to walk down their street - meeting their neighbours along the way. Go to their local shops - meeting their neighbours. Possibly waiting at the bus stop - meeting their neighbours. Working in the local factory - meeting their neighbours. Going for a pint - meeting their neighbours etc.

The community spirit for the majority disappeared a long time ago. Very sad.

On a side note: does anyone have any photos of any of the renovated tenements?

Wavertree Gardens are relatively unspoilt Brian apart from the main arch from the High Street being gated and the new name Abbeygate Apartments being above it. During the renovation, double glazed old style window frame units were put in etc.

The Bullring looks good with each landing's doors painted a different colour and it's part grassed central area but bear in mind it's student based now so not as wrecked.

Years ago they would have had to walk down their street - meeting their neighbours along the way. Go to their local shops - meeting their neighbours. Possibly waiting at the bus stop - meeting their neighbours.

Where I live it's still like that. There is always someone to talk to, either your immediate neighbours, or at the local shops or at the bus stop as you say. Our neighbours go into each others houses for a cuppa and a chat, and when the weather is better talk on the doorsteps.

Sometimes it's like being in a golldfish bowl! -you can't move and someone sees you !! and everyone knows everyone else's comings and goings. .. not complaining really - - we have a great community, there is always someone to turn to if needs be, and still a lot of the original old families hanging in there -- even though many strangers are moving into the area. You never have to be lonely or bored here, there's always a neighbour to chat to.

Where I live it's still like that. There is always someone to talk to, either your immediate neighbours, or at the local shops or at the bus stop as you say. Our neighbours go into each others houses for a cuppa and a chat, and when the weather is better talk on the doorsteps.

Sometimes it's like being in a golldfish bowl -you can't move and someone sees you !! and everyone knows everyone else's comings and goings. .. not complaining really - - we have a great community, there is always someone to turn to if needs be, and still a lot of the original old families hanging in there -- even though many strangers are moving into the area. You never have to be lonely or bored here, there's always a neighbour to chat to.

Yes lindy, there is no doubt that there are still clusters of neighbourhoods like that. I know for instance that those ex Gerard Gardens community that managed to get houses in their old neighbourhood and so know each other from old are still like that - the same wit the Vauxhall Gardens, Holy Cross, 4 squares community. We also hear so much about incidents in other neighbourhoods where when reporters are interviewing local residents, they say 'nobody really knew him' or 'he kept himself to himself likes lots of people around here' or 'He'd nod when we passed each other but that was about it'

I've driven into lots of closes on my rounds, especially in winter, where it's like a ghost town and it's a case of coming home from work, straight in the front door and closed, not seeing people from one day to the next, especially in the dark nights and depths of winter. The demise of the high street shops for a jangle and a catch up is not good for this either. That's one thing you could not say about the floodlit tennie squares that were a hive of activity all year round.

Tommy's Mum moved from Addison St, little two up and down terraced off Byrom St. up to new houses off Mile End, most of her neighbours went out of Town, and when we go to visit, once we come out the tunnel all the old neighbourhood's are taken up with student accommodation right up to Burlington Street.

Anfield. We still have a good community, many established families which have spanned the generations still here. But sadly, for various reasons, the district has been left to deteriorate and the community has been somewhat eroded by the moving in of 'problem families' and other problematic people who have been evicted from somewhere else. Anfield is currently known to be the 'dumping ground' but that's another story.
I think once a solid community has been chipped away at over a long period, it will eventually disappear never to be replaced.

...Anfield is currently known to be the 'dumping ground' but that's another story.

Maybe it's the story. Chris Wilson (see above) was talking about the grouping of all the problem cases
in one basket where in the past they might have been spread about a bit and there was less of an 'entitlement culture' (his words).

Perhaps if there was a penalty rate imposed on buildings left to rot in the hope of getting a demolition permit things might look a little different. There should be time limit on leaving buildings derilict with the council stepping in to keep the buildings viable with a charge on the owners equity in the building.
On the otherhand the experiments that have failed was it the housing or the housed that were the problem. I don't reall any Cornish fishing villages with "criminal rat runs" going through them a few smugglers coves, yes, but most are very desirable places to live.
Same with tower blocks how come they turned into such a heap of crud in such a short time- in terms of property life span, when in other countries around the world they are accepted as inner city housing. If those tower blocks were privatised dwellings would they still be habitable or even proved to be a good investment?

Perhaps if there was a penalty rate imposed on buildings left to rot in the hope of getting a demolition permit things might look a little different. There should be time limit on leaving buildings derilict with the council stepping in to keep the buildings viable with a charge on the owners equity in the building.
On the otherhand the experiments that have failed was it the housing or the housed that were the problem. I don't reall any Cornish fishing villages with "criminal rat runs" going through them a few smugglers coves, yes, but most are very desirable places to live.
Same with tower blocks how come they turned into such a heap of crud in such a short time- in terms of property life span, when in other countries around the world they are accepted as inner city housing. If those tower blocks were privatised dwellings would they still be habitable or even proved to be a good investment?

You don’t have to go abroad to find successful high-rise blocks of flats - there’s one or two in Sefton Park. But they don’t suit everybody and that’s been a problem - the one size fits all idea.

And you don’t need a permit to demolition an ordinary house in North Liverpool (or anywhere else) - you need tenants and owners who can afford to keep houses up.

I’ve lost the link and can’t remember the name... but this ‘fishing village’ was only there for five minutes before being pulled down by council (no doubt on threat of the tenants burning it down) (Trafalgar? Tredegar? Talacre?).

There’s an estate in Aintree of more or less the same design as some others. Hedges are clipped. Windows painted. Looked After.

The others look like Beirut.

All of the estates (and tennies and flats) started out as aspirational (a "letter from God to get in") and ended up as poor ghettoes.

Local Authority Housing Estates are the cheapest we can do. As a whole we more or less insist it's that way. We want value for 'our' money.

Yet, Local Authorities are obliged to house everyone (who can’t help themselves). Those who can, look after themselves and move on and up (or emigrate). Those who can’t, end up in a cheap rate Sink Estate at the back of nowhere.

***

Yes, people are the problem and money is the problem. But what do we do? Re-open the workhouses for the “ne’er-do-wells”?

However, the Cornish fishing village which was the Radcliffe Estate was badly thought out and planned. Rats runs, no emergency vehicle access, your car parked in a communal area hundreds of yards away etc. The Easby and Grizedale estates were not dissimilar but more livable but even these have only lasted 40 years which is 10 years or so less than the walk up tenements, not all of which were ghettos.

I think going back to street plans with garden houses has been a success in a lot of areas.

However, the Cornish fishing village which was the Radcliffe Estate was badly thought out and planned. Rats runs, no emergency vehicle access, your car parked in a communal area hundreds of yards away etc. The Easby and Grizedale estates were not dissimilar but more livable but even these have only lasted 40 years which is 10 years or so less than the walk up tenements, not all of which were ghettos.

I think going back to street plans with garden houses has been a success in a lot of areas.

Sometimes I get cynicism and irony mixed up.

I didn't mean to say that people are a problem. I meant to say that not taking (all different types of) people into account is a problem.

Some people cannot look after themselves. It's not their fault. And they don't deserve to be lumped together in a wholly inappropriate architectural/planning experiment to satisfy council's obligations under the Housing Acts.

The Radcliffe Estate was clearly unfit for purpose for the people who were to use it. It might have made a great student Halls of Residence (who have fewer cars and a more communal and transient lifestyle) or maybe those who did use it actually didn't have so many cars anyway. Then maybe nothing wrong with the architecture - just used in the wrong way.

Incidentally, and again it wouldn't suit everyone but if we spent as much time and money and management effort on affordable housing as we do on student accommodation and particularly student campus accommodation, I think certain sections of society would be a lot better off.

***

Nevertheless... Lord Denning found in favour of the council; arguing that council had only an obligation to exercise reasonable care - which they did. In fact Council did everything it could in the circumstances in the teeth of some pretty outrageous louts in the area (it says). In fact, Denning says:

"[Council] have been beaten by the vandals and hooligans. [Council] were not in breach of their duty to use reasonable care."

This was also backed up in the House of Lords even though it also went on to say:

"Some people might think that it would have been, on balance, wrong for the council to adopt such an attitude, but no one could possibly describe such an attitude as irrational or perverse."

[because of the actions of vandals, the huge liability that council would have accepted for us all and the very tight financial constraints within which council had to work]

So much for the law. But it does support the idea that council (ie., we) shouldn't have to keep paying to fix things for as long as people are prepared to kick seven bells out of them

I have the same problem. and at times people read things wrong. ..(not you Ged)

Originally Posted by Ged

It is true that sometimes it's 'some' of the people. It is also true that sometimes, Council policy lets the tenants down.

I know what you mean, but I do think people should help themselves a little more. It doesn't take money to take a little pride in your living area - a brush and shovel and bit of water to clean your living environment. You can be the poorest person but still clean your immediate surroundings and keep it half decent. You can even do small repairs instead of waiting for everything to be done for you. I've seen perfectly able bodied people complaining and waiting for something simple like a faulty latch on a garden gate, or a hole in the fence or whatever, to be fixed. Why are some people so hapless and helpless ? Even if you don't have money it doesn't take much to use a screwdriver or put a lick of paint around.
It boils down to having no pride or sense of making a home.
Of course, the council or landlords should do the major stuff - but some people expect every little thing done for them.
I know what you are saying Ged about places being allowed to fall into disrepair - I'm sure that is true and has happened - but it does make you wonder why some estates and tower blocks have worked and yet others haven't.
I've seen estates and tower blocks which are well kept, clean and the outside areas smart and tidy - yet others are like hell holes .. so must we assume it's the type of people living in them ??
Even if you live in a place in bad repair, the poorest person can have standards and at least be clean and tidy.